Tomorrow arrives so slowly when you want the world to end. I think that dying must be like time torture. But I don't want the world to end, just this brief part of it to pass. Though I suppose picking and choosing what I like best and what I want to ignore got me here in the first place.

I'm sweating. For the second time in four days heroin is coming out my body. It's too much. It's too exhausting. Heroin cannot be a halfway house. One must either do it all the time or not at all. Trying to straddle some middle road is eternal damnation. No junkie can be happy having to economise like that, it's the worst thing in the world.

My friend Katy once told her imaginary drug counsellor that the thing that would make her better was two £20 baggies a day. If the system could give her that she'd be fine. Her reasoning was correct but two bags would only have helped her for a time and then she'd have needed three. But what she was saying was that she wanted some kind of predictability, some insurance policy that allowed her to plan and regain her proper self and emotions. Living for the giro cheque and begging to maybe get a bag every two or three days was tearing her apart.

A week later, she was tracked down and bashed up by some embittered ex-lover, her face smashed open on the sink in her bedsit. I found her wandering down Uxbridge Road with glazed black eyes and a split lip. People were veering and staggering out her way. It was like she was war and famine and disease and was there for the kids. She told me that she wanted to die, that she needed a fix. I said "I'll put you in for a fix." She hugged me and cried and then she was the happiest girl in town.

Katy died the next day - heroin overdose. That's what the street corner said anyway. I didn't really mourn her, I didn't know how to mourn someone like that. I suppose you do it with a tourniquet and a spoon and an extra strong hit. I don't know. Anyway, as usual, when street corners speak they speak a load of bollocks. A year later I found Katy sitting outside a courthouse rolling a cigarette and making little sketches. She was up on heroin possession and supply charges. That's how she took what she needed from the system. And then they took it back. She got two years and I never saw her again.

All these people that pass by are history. I remember them like that, like their faces represent a certain amount of time or a season or a sky. Their words and clothes and actions define a time. We're all history, that's for sure.

Tomorrow is Day 6. Not really but for us it is. I must catch up on my emails and mop the floor. Nothing too exciting there, but once when I was mopping the floor I found a small chunk of heroin. It must have shot off from a larger rock and sat there for god knows how long. Since then I don't mind soaping the tiles... the dishes, though, forget it... there's absolutely no future in washing dishes.

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I read what you last said to me just before going to work so I had a nice warm glow all day at the library! This is very unusual.

Well you give me too much credit - if I was that great at motivating I would be writing so much more myself - all the creativity and energy comes from you. And I am really very choosy when it comes to writers. But as soon as I read the first Memoirs post I immediately had to read every other one before and since.

Yes, although I’ve had loads of questions re:Heroin I know there is absolutely no advice I could give you: as someone who’s been on H for 10 years there’s nothing anyone could say that you haven’t thought of yourself. I’m a sort of believer in ‘fate’ when it comes to these things. I tried to give up smoking every Monday for the five years I smoked. Then one day it worked - the day Diana died! That sort of thing works for me- having a memorable date, if all else is in tune. Terence Stamp bemoaned his failure to give up smoking despite the fact he tried so many times, and the guru guy he was seeing said: ‘If you keep trying you might succeed one day. If you don’t try you never will’. Again, ultra simplistic, but one day just might be the right day.

Yes I do think of you as a writer first - the H days are like your time consuming day job. But of course doing/not doing whatever we’re addicted to is not as simple as ‘You’d have so much more time to write’ since the addiction is also part of why and what we write and who we are. It’s about how to live. And What’s It All About.

I think some success would definitely be a good thing. I know that whenever I got any encouragement with writing - say I got a book/story accepted - then everything else went out the window and I spent day and night on the writing. And I think your sense of guilt at missing (self-imposed) deadlines would mean that you would be ultra responsible when it came to outside deadlines etc.

You have soooo much material (your mother could be a book in herself - love those DC posts. You should put them on here: that bit where she said ‘watch this!' to the guy and just hit you, a child, and the three of you burst out laughing was chilling). And you know you have all the talent/ability and you are actually doing it.

ShaneI tried heroin for the first time today. (smoked it) only because it's my birthday and someone close to me hurt me very much, and all my oxy dealers don't have anything. And i could get "that" stuff.It did nothing to me, i didn't like it.Thank God.

Shane, hey, I just caught up with your last few posts, and there's not much to say, except that i totally sympathize. just hope you're allright and that, no matter what, you'll keep on writing.Take care my man!DB

Hi Shane and Not-High Sweden - I got nothing from heroin but nausea and dysphoria for the first 20 or so times I took it - but that didn't make me give up, because I never give up, I just keep on going. I got there in the end, and was it worthwhile? I don't know, because there is no way of judging: "and what is good, and what is bad - who can tell us these things?" (Phaedrus). So Sweden, you sweet Nordic nation, you ain't off the hook yet - if that hook's waiting for in the future like some grisly bird hovering above your head, you may well yet be hooked. Have a nice day.

well my body is quite used to opiates, ive been snorting oxycontin and morphine for 7 years. I'm just not interested in heroin, but like i said i did it because my reg stuff was not there and i was terrible upset and getting high makes the world smile.

Love the literature. Reading about scoring at 3am has sent shudders down my spine and has reinforced the fact that i aint going back to that. Come from 95 mls of meth and now on 4 mls subutex in 3 months. Proud of that, its been hard. Had to leavemy town and moved back with family, every addict needs a big support network to stay clean. Thanks for your honesty. Regards Matt

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